Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1887-06-19
eyes" said 1

Gill; oll, blsAb II - w
note raised to 800, and this raising OF bills
is very common. Here is q 81 raised to SlO,
and 81 to $40. The plan is to erae what
ever may be necessary to the change from
the bill by means of acids or other cheml-
Gals, and then to put in new amounts by
print or sometimes with the pen. Such
bills do not deceive men who are accus-
tomned TO handle money, but they pass
easily il the country districts. IL Is IN
the country that the most counterfeiting
is done and passed. The banks OF the city
are expert and wary, and there is danger
of detection"
next picked up SOME s. notes, and the
guard, picking upa$5, went on. That
said he, sis a very dangerous counterfeit,
and the plates from which it was produced
are so near like the genuine that they are
almost perfect. We got $7O,OOO Of this
money when we captured the man who
made them, and there was a great deal in
circulation. Some was sent here for re-
demptiOn and we detected the fraud by a
microscopic examination. The trouble
was that the same plate was used for six
or eight different banks. They were so
made that the name OF the bank could be
chan ged, and when it was advertised over
the country that there were counterieits OF
such a bank issue, they changed the name
of the bank and were thus enabled to get
more upOn the market"
'How about the bank note paper? Can
that be counterieited?'
eyes; Tom Ballard got thirty years for
succeeding at this. We convicted him on
two indictments for counterfeiting and
sent him TO the Albany penitentiary for
thirty years"
II notice that all this counterfeit money
has the word bad cut into them"
YES, we cut all counterfeit money that
way as soon as it is received, and we ruin
the plates by gouging grooves through the
engraving" | looked at the engraved
plates at this point and found them cut
this way and that, so as to utterly destroy
the design.
A curiosity in bad money was shown NE
in the shape of a $50 bill. Every bit of the
paper and every line Of the bill is genuine.
And | asked the guard what he kept it for
and why it was.
at is not a full bill," he replied, "and
if you will examine it carefully you will
see that il is made up Of pieces pasted
neatly together. The man who made this
took twenty good $50 bills and he cut
each into twenty pieces and then put them
together, leaving one piece Odt of each bill,
so that at the close, instead OF having
twenty $50 bills, he had twenty-One.
When he got through his bills looked very
well and they passed easily; but after they
had been handled two or three times they
began to show the seams and were easily
detected. This method of making money
is, how yer, very difficult, and we get very
few such bills.
'There was cOunterfeiting done during
the Confederacy," he went on, but the
trouble was the cOunterfeits of the Con
federate money were better than the
originals, and the money soon became so
very worthless that it did not pay to
counterfeit it.
lone of the best $5 counterfeits ever
made was made by an Ohio man named
Ulrich. He made an excellent $50 and
500 plate. He was arrested in Cincinnati
and the plate secured. He was sentenced
to the Ohio penitentiary, and while IN con-
finement he engraved upon an old saw
blade an excellent portrait of Ex-Governor
William Allen.
The head of the secret service would
make o splendid character for Anna kath-
crime Green, and if she would come come
here she could find plenty of material tor
her detective stories. His name is James
J.. Brooks, and he is, perhaps, as expert a
master of his art as any in the world. He
is now about 60 years of age, medium
height, and he has a very white
face and short white hair, which
looks like frosted silver. lie has an aqul-
line nose, with very sensitive n~Ostrils, and
the mustache under this is the color OF
driven snow. His eyes are a blush gray,
and when he smiles crows feet gather at
their corners. lie talks in a voice almost
as metallic "a the ring of the genuine sill
yer dollar, and he Il tell n man at a
glance and scent a counterfeiter by the at
mosphere which surrounds him. lie Is a
pleasant man in conversation, Is cultured
and brainy, aud is more happy at being
the pnSsessOr of twenty-six grand children
than of any stroke Of detective work he
has ever done.
FRANK G. CARPENTER.